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Comfort zone Oscar Peterson was equally facile with swing, be-bop and hard bop

I later heard Peterson described by a BBC jazz presenter as the man who sounds as if he has 22 fingers. Only Peterson came close to Art Tatum, whom he adulated, a man who literally sounded like two pianists. In fact, some critics thought he played too many notes, but he could make each note count and sound just right.

Peterson was always in awe of Tatum from the time his father brought home a record of Tatum’s to challenge him. In fact, he once stopped playing at a private party when Tatum walked in. Apart from Tatum, one of his early influences was Nat King Cole, who was thought a talented jazz pianist before he found success as a pop singer.

Peterson was born to black West Indian parents in 1925 in Canada, where he died of kidney failure on December 23 aged 82. Although he won a talent contest at 14 and started gaining recognition, he faced some racial bias. Later, when he moved to the USA, he encountered a different bias: Americans had difficulty acknowledging how good a Canadian jazz artist could be.

Ultimately his prodigious ability won through. In 1949 he became a fixture in the record producer Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) series of concert tours. Granz, who also founded Verve records, made him the pianist of choice accompanying a variety of jazz luminaries on this renowned label.

Peterson became one of the busiest pianists in all jazz. He had two parallel career tracks going in the 1950s and 1960s. On the one hand he led a piano trio (with bass and guitar or drums), which later frequently grew into a quartet with both guitar and drums, and was possibly the most famous piano-led trio in jazz. The trio recordings provided the source from which “Oscar Peterson Plays Jazz Standards” was compiled.

On the other hand, his trio or a quartet led by him backed such greats as singer Ella Fitzgerald and singer-trumpeter Louis Armstrong (`Ella and Louis’), Armstrong (`Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson’), singer Sarah Vaughan, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, alto saxophonist Benny Carter, and many others.

He was equally facile with swing, be-bop and hard bop, and was Granz’s natural choice for the piano chair when the latter got together an all-star cast led by Charlie Parker for “Jam Session” in 1952. Granz also turned to him for a jam session comprising three trumpeters, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry and Roy Eldridge (“The Trumpet Kings at Montreux”, 1975), and again Gillespie, Terry and Freddie Hubbard (“The Trumpet Summit Meets the Oscar Peterson Trio”). In all these encounters with singers, trumpets and saxes, Peterson was not only all that they wanted as an accompanist, but was also a brilliant soloist in his turn.

He also figured in unusual concepts such as a duet album with a trumpeter, Gillespie, or with another pianist, the veteran Count Basie. The latter was a study in contrasts between Peterson’s style and Basie’s, Basie being very sparing in his use of notes.

Peterson was always known for his inventive and dazzling harmonics with his very active left hand. But in 1994 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered, and his left side was partially affected. He still managed to return to performing and recording with a less packed schedule, and with his harmonic accompaniment somewhat less dense.

In a long and mostly very busy career, Peterson sometimes came up with pedestrian work, as some critics have pointed out. Critics have also said that Peterson’s playing lacked emotional depth. I beg to differ on the strength of two tracks: Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring” and the Brown tribute “I Remember Clifford”, both from “Oscar Peterson Plays Jazz Standards”. Dexterity and depth ensure that Peterson’s place in jazz will remain unique.

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